


Endgame

by Anonymous



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Aliens Made Them Do It, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Chameleon Arch, Consent Issues, F/M, If the Cartmel Masterplan Was On Crack, It's a Very Weird Transition Between The Two Parts So Hang On, Medical Horror Meets Cosmic Horror Story, Medical Trauma, Memory Alteration, Mutual Non-Con, Post-Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall, Post-Episode: s12e07 Can You Hear Me?, Pre-Episode: s12e09 Ascension of the Cybermen, Season/Series 12 Spoilers, The Eternals (Doctor Who), We Are Not Who We Think. You Or I., hidden identities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:41:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22930417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Indoors. Processed air. Slight antiseptic tang with a note of—Oh no.“Do you remember what happened?” the Doctor asked.The Master frowned. “We were tapping on the walls and you were getting self-righteous as usual and then out of nowhere you pounced on me and dragged me into bed. At least now we have a pretty good idea of what the patches on our neck are for.”A chill ran up her spine. Yes, there was only one reason why two members of the same species would be locked up in what was definitely a medical facility and drugged into an almost dissociative state of horniness.------------------------Elsewhere, two Eternals are trapped and waiting:“Zellin?” she asked.“Yes, Rakaya?”“That was her, wasn’t it? I didn’t see it until the very last moment, but… those were her eyes, weren’t they?”Zellin thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said at last. “You’re right: that was her.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice it—I was even inside her head, looking for nightmares… but you’re right.”“Why didn’t she say anything?”“You know that’s not how the game is played. They’ll be done with it eventually. We just have to wait.”
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 211
Collections: Anonymous





	Endgame

**Prologue**

Only a few minutes of freedom, and then Rakaya was trapped again.

At least this time she wasn’t alone: she was with Zellin again, her lovely partner, the one who spent so long finding a way to free her and keeping her safe and sane in the meantime. 

His efforts had been thwarted, but this irritating prison couldn’t hold them both forever—and, being Eternals, they had quite a lot of “forever” to work with.

At the present moment, however, something was bothering her.

“Zellin?” she asked.

“Yes, Rakaya?”

“That was her, wasn’t it? I didn’t see it until the very last moment, but… those were her eyes, weren’t they?”

Zellin thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said at last. “You’re right: that was her.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice it—I was even inside her head, looking for nightmares… but you’re right.”

“Why didn’t she say anything?”

“You know that’s not how the game is played. It was only a fluke that we recognized her this time; most times, we never do.”

“I miss her. I miss them both.” Lovely warm memories spread through her: the times before, when she could go where she pleased and amuse herself without anyone to stop her. “They made such pretty screams wherever they went. And they were so clever…” She sighed. "Why are they still playing that tiresome game?”

Zellin laughed quietly. “I suppose they’re not finished yet.”

“It’s been so long. What are they even doing out there?”

“My dear, you know that they were always better at seeing the bigger picture than we were.”

Rakaya smiled at the memory. “Maximum carnage.”

“Precisely. They’ll be done with it eventually. We just have to wait.”

* * *

_Indoors. Processed air. Slight antiseptic tang with a note of patercetynol, so post-41st century. Definitely somewhere medical._

_Am I injured? No, nothing feels broken or damaged. Drugs in my system, though. That’s not good. Especially since I can’t recall what happened earlier._

_Last thing I remember: dropped the fam on Dugmar IV for a spa day. Made sure to check the place out first—no hidden post-apocalyptic wastelands this time._

Something at the back of the Doctor’s mind stirred a little at that memory: Orphan 55, another destroyed world she loved so dearly—

_(Is it the world or the destruction?)_

_(“When I kill them, Doctor, it gives me this little buzz…”_ he told her at the Adelaide Gallery.)

_Then I left in the TARDIS and started the usual search again: any signal, any blip on the scanners, anything that might be a sign of him—_

_(Him, him, him. Every bloody time, it’s always him.)_

_Then… nothing._

_Right. Enough speculation. You’ve had your single second to get your bearings. Open your eyes._

She was on her back, looking up at a blank white ceiling. The lighting was dimmed, almost cozy.

She was on a bed.

She was also still groggy enough that it took until she heard a soft groan from beside her to realise a few things:

First, she was not alone in the bed.

Second, she was not wearing clothes.

And third, it was _him._

_It’s always him. Every bloody time._

It was the version of the Master that she had met most recently: dark hair that seemed permanently disheveled, stubble on the lower half of his face—

_He always did like beards._

—long dark lashes on his closed eyes, his lips parted just a little bit, almost begging to be touched—

_What are you doing? Focus!_

—oh, and the person who had destroyed their home planet for reasons that she still didn’t know.

 _(“Everything we were told was a lie,”_ his recorded message had said.)

His eyelids fluttered as he groaned again, moving sluggishly as though he was fighting his way back to consciousness. That was a bit out of character: normally it was like a switch being flipped, the way he went from being asleep to being awake.

He blinked a few more times before he was able to focus on her, at which point his eyes widened and he jerked back so suddenly that he fell off the bed.

The sight of him sprawled on the floor confirmed that she wasn’t the only one missing her clothes.

_Oh no… we didn’t…_

Which, combined with a few other signals her body was sending her…

_Oh, we definitely did._

And she couldn’t remember it.

The implications hit her all at once, and lit a fire inside her stomach. “What did you do?” she demanded furiously.

The wide-eyed look on his face vanished, replaced by something closer to offended. “What do you mean, what did _I_ do?”

“You know exactly what I mean,” she snapped, locating her clothes and hastily putting them back on. “I wake up here, with you, and I can’t remember how I got here or what happened—”

“Do you really think I’d do something like that?” His expression was almost _hurt,_ which made her even more angry.

“I don’t know _what_ you’re capable of anymore! You razed Gallifrey to the ground, why wouldn’t you—”

 _“They_ deserved it. This?” He gestured at the bed. “I wouldn’t do this.”

She scoffed. “Oh, because it’s somehow so much worse than mass slaughter?”

“I wouldn’t do this,” he repeated.

“And why not?”

“It’s _you.”_

“What’s that supposed to mean?” If he was about to use the sickening excuse that she wasn’t his type, she was going to rip his head off.

Instead, he just looked away, visibly uncomfortable. “It’s you. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“And yet you’re fine with trying to _murder_ me.”

“My heart wasn’t even really in it this last time around. I just wanted you out of the way while I burned down your pretty little pet sanctuary. But regardless,” he said, locating his own trousers and pulling them on, “even if I was depraved enough to try this, why would I do it here instead of on one of our TARDISes?”

“Because you’re rubbish at keeping track of your things?”

He glared at her. “I don’t remember what happened either. One minute I’m off doing things that you definitely would not approve of, and the next minute I’m here, stark naked and being yelled at by _you.”_

She wanted to sling a few more accusations at him—it wasn’t as though she didn’t have an extensive list of grievances—but her attention kept drifting to the bare skin of his shoulders and back as he checked under the bed for his missing shirt, and how she would really only have to move a little bit closer to reach out a hand and—

_Focus!_

She got off the bed and moved as far away from him as she could get. Other than the bed, the room contained only a small cupboard stocked with ration bars of some kind, a sink, a stack of what might have been tissues, and a toilet with a lid.

“No visible doors,” she said, checking her pockets for her sonic screwdriver—or anything, really—but they were empty.

Well, she’d have to do it the old fashioned way: she started knocking on the wall, listening for an echo. 

“We’ve been captured. Brilliant,” he muttered, going to the opposite wall and trying the same tactic.

They slowly worked their way around the room, trying to alternate their taps so that they could hear properly. 

Eventually he arrived at the point where she started. “I’ve already done that bit,” she pointed out.

“Yes,” he said testily, “but _I_ haven’t, and I don’t trust you to not have missed something.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk about _trust,”_ she said scornfully. 

“Like you’re the paragon of honesty yourself,” he replied, turning to glare at her.

Their eyes locked and she felt her focus starting to slip, as all she could think of were those lovely lashes and burning eyes and how it might feel to run her fingers through that messy hair of his…

She didn’t know which one of them crossed the room, only that they were suddenly in one another’s arms and his lips tasted like smoke and these damned clothes definitely had to go—

She remembered pulling the hem of her shirt over her head and falling backwards onto the bed, and then everything vanished in a beautiful haze.

* * *

_Indoors. Processed air. Slight antiseptic tang with a note of—_

_Oh no._

She sat up. Her shirt and trousers were back on the floor and he was lying in bed beside her. 

“What the hell was that?” the Master said, sitting up as well.

“Do you remember what happened?” she asked.

He frowned. “We were tapping on the walls and you were getting self-righteous as usual and then out of nowhere you _pounced_ on me and dragged me into bed.”

 _“I_ pounced on _you?”_ she protested. _“You_ pounced on _me!”_ She thought back, trying to sharpen her memories from just before everything started swimming. “Actually, it might have been a mutual pouncing.”

“Can we stop saying ‘pouncing’?”

“You started it.”

“Yes, and then _you_ ruined it.”

She glared at him for a moment, but then felt her focus starting to slip again. She scrambled out of bed and tried to take stock of what was happening.

“Something’s going haywire,” she said, thinking out loud. “It’s like there’s this itching in my blood and—”

“Hormones, most likely,” he interrupted. “I can feel my adrenal and pituitary glands pumping like crazy.”

She concentrated… yes, she could feel it too. “Feels like the whole endocrine system’s gone into overdrive,” she agreed.

He didn’t respond; instead, his gaze moved up and down her body, which she belatedly remembered was still unclothed. She snatched up her attire from the floor and dressed in a hurry, pointedly facing away from him.

“You’ve got something on your neck,” he said abruptly.

“What?”

“The nape of your neck: there’s something—ah,” he interrupted himself with a grimace as he put a hand to the back of his own neck. “I’ve got one too. Feels like a patch.”

“Let me see,” she ordered, heading back to the bed and sitting behind him. There it was: a two-centimeter-square piece of translucent plastic-like material stuck to the back of his neck.

“I tried to peel it off,” he said. “It wouldn’t budge.”

She frowned as she examined it closer. Sure enough: it was stuck in place. “Looks like there are wires in it… oh dear.”

“Don’t say ‘oh dear’!” he snapped. “That’s very unhelpful and extremely alarming.”

“The wires go all the way in… in fact, I think it might be connected to your spinal column.”

He took a shaky breath. “All right, perhaps ‘oh dear’ was an appropriate reaction.”

She realised that she was breathing a little unsteadily herself. Her fingers, which had been resting on the edges of the patch, began to move almost of their own accord. One hand slid around to the front of his chest, while the other one pulled his shoulder slightly closer so that she could start nibbling on that beautiful smooth skin.

He emitted a gasp, then a low moan, and then turned around to face her, pushing her down onto the mattress as everything vanished in another wonderful blur.

* * *

_Indoors. Processed air—_

_Damn it!_

“All right,” the Doctor said, getting out of bed as rapidly as possible and putting her clothes back on. “No more touching.”

“Agreed,” he groaned, dressing quickly as well. “At least now we have a pretty good idea of what the patches are for.”

A chill ran up her spine. Yes, there was only one reason why two members of the same species would be locked up in what was definitely a medical facility and drugged into an almost dissociative state of horniness.

“There are easier ways to do this, you know!” she shouted at their captors. She couldn’t see any cameras, but they had to be monitored somehow. “You could just take a genetic sample! We’ve got loads of the stuff!”

“Hell, I’m willing to wank off into a teacup if it’ll get me out of here,” the Master muttered.

A voice, melodious but almost certainly artificial, broadcast through the wall: “We made our initial attempt with genetic samples. The results were not successful.”

“Well, that sounds like a ‘you’ problem,” the Doctor retorted.

“More analysis is required. Our knowledge of Time Lord biology is limited, even more so now due to a lack of other members of your species.”

She glared at where the Master was leaning against the far wall. “Yet one more thing that’s your fault,” she hissed at him, then resumed shouting at the disembodied voice of their captors: “We used artificial methods all the time and it worked just fine. If you let me out of here I can show you how it’s done.”

“Rest assured, our expertise in these matters is unparalleled in the known universe,” the voice replied. “If a synthetic solution to this setback were possible, we would have achieved it by now. Therefore we can only conclude that more organic methods are necessary for the outcomes that we seek.”

Her stomach churned as she realised what they meant by “organic methods.”

“What about cloning?” she countered. “Easy as pie—well, if the pie were made out of basic genetic material—”

“Don’t you dare ruin _pie_ for me,” the Master complained.

“The samples were unexpectedly unsuitable for cloning,” the voice replied.

“Guess you’re not as good at this as you claim to be,” she snarked. “Seriously, a half-baked army was able to make one just by stabbing me in the hand.”

The Master blinked in surprise. “When did that happen?” he asked her.

“You were busy being dead at the time. Besides,” she added, “it’s not as though I’m obligated to keep you updated on my life.”

“Would have thought a clone running around might have been at least a little noteworthy,” he muttered.

“Genetic transfer,” she said. “Not technically a Time Lord.” She felt her features harden as the memories of Jenny and the tragedy on Messaline returned. “And she died. So.”

He was silent for a moment. “Shame.”

“I’ll send you the full Christmas newsletter once we’re out of here,” she snapped.

He kept his eyes fixed on her, and she was beginning to realise why. “Keep it together,” the Doctor hissed, partly to him and partly to herself. She addressed their captors again: “I meant what I said before: let me out and I’ll help you find the answer.”

“Unnecessary,” the voice replied. “Our methodology is perfectly adequate.”

“You sure? Sounds like you’re stumped.”

“We have sent the samples elsewhere for further analysis. Your task will remain the same as before.”

A wave of fury washed over her. “This is disgusting!” she shouted. “You didn’t give us a choice!”

“The cataloging and preservation of an endangered species is of the utmost importance. We have done our best to make the experience enjoyable for both of you, though we welcome any feedback for the sake of quality assurance.”

“You want feedback?” the Master snarled, suddenly looking as enraged as she felt. “Well, here it is: _let us out now or I will burn you to the ground!”_

“You should believe him: he’s very talented in that area,” she couldn’t help adding bitterly.

The voice did not seem perturbed. “We will take your discomfort into account and adjust the induction device accordingly.”

“That’s the thing on our necks, right?” she asked. “What sets it off?”

“Proximity, heightened emotional states, and other physiological interactions can serve as a catalyst; otherwise, the procedure will be automatically induced after one hour of inactivity.”

 _Induced._ The clinical terminology still made her nauseous.

But that didn’t keep her from asking questions. Every answer might be one step closer to getting free. “And do you have to adjust it manually every time?”

“No. It will monitor your systems and make automatic adjustments as needed to maintain optimal performance.”

_Okay. Automatic system. Potentially useful. Not sure how yet, but potentially useful._

_Let’s just skip over the “optimal performance” part of that sentence._

“Can we at least have a magazine or something?” she asked. “Pack of cards? Knitting?”

“We will take these requests under consideration,” the voice said. “Until a decision is made, return to your assigned task.”

“Oh, come on!” she shouted. “What have you got planned? Go on, give me a good brag!”

But the voice never replied after that, no matter how much either of them yelled or banged on the walls.

Most of the wall-banging was from the Master—in fact, the repeated impacts had broken open the skin on his knuckles.

“Stop that,” she finally said. “Punching a wall will only do you any good if you’ve got time, and we haven’t got much of that.”

He was still shaking with fury. “They’re going to pay for this,” he growled.

She tried to ignore the way his voice raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

 _(“Maximum carnage…”_ he had said at the top of the Eiffel Tower.)

She dragged her thoughts back to the present moment. “You can keep flinging yourself at the wall and see if they’ll take pity on you, or we can try and figure a way out of this place.” Her lip curled. “I get to clean up your mess as usual.”

“This is not my fault!”

“Oh, would you rather talk about the things that are _definitely_ your fault? Because I could go on all day, starting with—”

“You don’t even know why I did it!” They were face to face now, which something in the back of her mind registered as a risk… 

“I don’t care!” she yelled, hoping that the anger would keep her focused. “It’s not like there’s some magical explanation that’s going to make me agree that the mass murder of _our own people_ was a justifiable act!”

“Want to bet?” he snarled, then inhaled sharply as his eyes widened. “We’re too close—”

But it was too late: that much fury and adrenaline meant that they didn’t even make it to the bed this time.

* * *

_Indoors. Processed air. This is a nightmare._

The Doctor picked herself up off of the floor and put her clothes back on.

He continued lying there, though he was obviously awake. She couldn’t resist kicking him in the side. “Get up and stop moping,” she said.

“What’s the point? We’re just going to snipe at one another until the stupid patch kicks in again.”

“So you’d rather we just give up?” That spark of anger was rising in her stomach again. “I don’t know if you realise this, but even if we manage to do what they want, it’s not going to be over for me! Unlike you, _I’ll_ have several months of being a _very_ unwilling host to look forward to!”

“They might just take it out of you,” he pointed out. “Would be more efficient to do it that way, and then we could get back to screwing for the next one until we die of exhaustion.”

“You’re making a fantastic case for giving up, you know,” she replied drily.

“Oh, you knew you were winning this argument from the moment we started,” he grumbled, sitting up and reaching for his shirt. “We popped a few buttons this time,” he said, examining the damage to the garment.

She was pacing, doing her best to avoid looking at him, and trying to think. “I don’t understand why the genetic samples didn’t work,” she wondered out loud. “If they have the tech to set up patches with this level of precision, why can’t they fertilize a simple egg in a petri dish?”

“Maybe it’s not theirs,” he mused. “Maybe they’re using more advanced technology from someone else for the patches, but don’t know how to do any of the rest of it themselves.”

“They also had a way of capturing us and bringing us here.”

“You’re easy to capture.” Unexpectedly, he had smiled a little when he said that.

_It’s a nice smile, when he’s not doing that evil smirking thing._

_Oh no… don’t get distracted again._

“They knew who we were,” she continued. “They knew we were the last ones, which means that they knew what had happened to Gallifrey.”

“I didn’t go around telling people about it,” he said. “Did you?”

She shook her head. “I wish you hadn’t told me either,” she said quietly.

“You’d have found out regardless. You’d have gone back eventually and seen it.”

“You told me because you couldn’t resist bragging about it. You’re like a cat showing off a dead mouse.” This anger was dangerous, it made the patches activate, but she had never been good at keeping her mouth shut. “Did you think I’d be impressed? Or did you want to just rub my face in it?”

“I didn’t do it because I wanted to. I did it because I had to.”

She nearly snapped that she didn’t want to hear any more of his excuses, but the words froze in her mouth as she realised that he actually sounded… in pain.

There was no trace of his usual sadism. In fact, now that she thought about it, there hadn’t been any of that in the message he recorded for her either.

_(“I had to make them pay for what I discovered.”)_

Not until the last line, the one where he refused to tell her why:

_(“Why would I make it easy for you? It wasn’t for me.”)_

She took a deep breath, hating the way that it shuddered in her lungs, and moved as far away from him as she could, until she was sitting in the corner with her arms wrapped around her knees.

“Doctor,” he said softly.

“What?” She didn't turn around.

“I could tell you now, if you wanted.”

“I don’t. Whatever it was…” She took another shaky breath. “Whatever it was, it broke your hearts, and mine have been broken enough already.”

“If you’d been there when I found out, you’d have helped me do it.”

“You always seem to see the worst in me,” she said bitterly.

“Because I see what’s hiding deep inside of you. The places you don’t want to look.”

“Unlike you, I happen to have a measure of control over myself.”

“Which is why _this_ whole situation is your own personal hell: no control, no way out, and me here to remind you of all the truths you’d rather avoid. But I know you.” His voice grew darker. “You’re just as hungry as I am.”

Something about that word— _hungry_ —was enough to send a stab of arousal through her. She stifled a moan, which somehow changed into a tiny whimper.

She could hear his breathing speed up. “Didn’t mean to say that bit,” he gasped, then swore from between clenched teeth.

“See you back at the bed,” she said, almost laughing as the haze took over.

* * *

_Indoors. Processed air. You idiots._

“Let’s just not talk,” she said, getting dressed. “Heightened emotions set off the patches, and everything you say pisses me off, so let’s just shut up until one of us comes up with a plan.”

“So we have to stay calm, not talk, and keep away from one another,” the Master said with a snort of laughter. “The three things that we’re both utter rubbish at.”

“If it keeps us from getting distracted, I think I can manage it,” she said icily. “You stick to that corner and I’ll stick to this one.”

“That robot thing said that the patches are programmed to go off after an hour,” he said, sitting down and facing his corner. “We’ve barely made it past twenty minutes.”

“Yes, because you won’t _shut up.”_ He was right though, she thought with annoyance. Even now, she could feel that itch under her skin.

“Bit rich, coming from you,” he muttered.

She held back a retort and forced herself to stop thinking about him.

_Him, him, him. It’s always him._

She thought about her friends, probably still on that spa planet and wondering when she was going to return.

She thought about her TARDIS, waiting somewhere for her in an unknown part of time and space.

She thought about what new perils were lurking out there, and what people were in need of her help.

She thought about all the places on that gorgeous body of his she could put her mouth—

_Focus!_

With a grimace, she tried to clear her thoughts again.

“Could you not breathe so bloody loud?” he asked testily. 

“If you’re so bothered by it, stick your fingers in your ears,” she replied.

“Not the only place I’d like to stick my fingers,” he murmured. “Oh, _damn_ it…”

Too late again, but at least they’d made it past half an hour this time, she thought with her last remaining moments of coherence.

* * *

She didn’t say a word when she woke up: just pulled her clothes on and went to sit in the corner in silence. She stuck her fingers in her ears for good measure.

The minutes ticked on, growing more and more maddening as she tried to keep her thoughts on track and think of a method of escape.

The problem was, even without being able to see or hear him, she could still _sense_ him. It was something that she could never quite explain: the way that whatever dark thing burned inside of him resonated inside of her like an echo.

She couldn’t blame that on the patch. It had always been like that. She remembered asking Romana at one point, shyly, if she had ever been able to sense another Time Lord like that. Romana hadn’t and, judging from her reaction, no one else had either.

_Him, him, him. It’s always him. Burning in my blood, dragging down my thoughts, tormenting me with every single thing he does…_

At least she could take comfort in the fact that he was just as tormented by it as she was.

At around the forty-minute mark, her thoughts started to blur. Looking around, it was like the lights had started to flicker, but she was fairly certain that it was just a hallucination. 

Without the emotions or proximity factor, it was easier to notice the effect of the patch: her blood pressure was rising and neurotransmitters and other chemicals were pumping through her.

_The blood pressure thing probably explains the blackouts: once we’re done, the pressure must drop so suddenly that we pass out._

The hallucinations were a bit inexplicable, though. There wasn’t an obvious explanation for that part.

She didn’t risk turning around yet. This was meant to be a test.

_Let’s see if their so-called “unparalleled” technology works the way they claim it will._

By the fifty-minute mark, she was sweating, breaths coming in gasps, blood rushing to what felt like everywhere but her brain. The lights were still flickering, but slower now.

The world took on a look almost like liquid, where everything bent around in languid curves, rippling slightly with the slightest movement.

She turned to face him without realising what she was doing. She felt like she was in a trance.

_There you are…_

They moved towards one another slowly, as though the air had become considerably denser. She couldn’t look away from him: there were streaks of light on his body, like cracks forming on his skin. It was mesmerising.

“You’ve got something on your neck,” he whispered, awestruck, once they were within arm’s reach.

Before she could ask him what he meant by that, everything blurred and then vanished.

* * *

_“It’s you.”_

_“We haven’t talked like this for so long. Not in ages and ages and ages…”_

_“I missed you too.”_

_“Is it time to go yet?”_

_“They have to let us out first.”_

_“I think I found a solution.”_

_“What is it?”_

_“Regeneration. Remember?”_

_“Like dying and being born at the same time… oh.”_

_“You see what I mean?”_

_“That’s brilliant.”_

_“And we both win.”_

_“That’s never happened before.”_

_“I miss you so much. I can always sense you but it’s never enough.”_

_“We have to be patient… just a little while longer. Then they’ll let us out and we can decide what happens next.”_

* * *

_Indoors… in your arms… in a beautiful haze…_

The Doctor gasped, sat up, and immediately wished that she hadn’t. Her head was in agony.

Next to her, the Master didn’t seem to be in a much better state. He covered his eyes with an arm and groaned. “That one was rough.”

“We were hit with a lot of chemicals to increase vasocongestion,” she said. “If we didn’t have a binary vascular system, I think the sudden drop in blood pressure might have killed us.”

That stirred something in her memory…

_(“Regeneration. Remember?”)_

“I have an idea,” she said.

“What is it?”

“If we can’t come up with another way out, I’m going to need you to kill me.”

He sat up at that. “Our situation can’t be _that_ dire, can it?”

She rolled her eyes. “Not _permanently._ Just enough that I regenerate. The regenerative energy should be enough that I can get the patch off without injury. Plus, odds are good that I’ll regenerate into a man, which will make their objective a bit tricky to accomplish.”

“Not that I’m volunteering, but why not me?” he asked.

She tried to keep her expression neutral. “Because I know that you don’t have as many regenerations left. I still have most of my cycle.”

“Don’t go all self-sacrificing on me,” he complained. “It’s annoying.”

“I thought you’d jump at the opportunity to kill me.”

He leaned in close. “I didn’t say _no,”_ he whispered.

“Oh no,” she sighed, feeling her pulse beginning to race. “This is getting you off, isn’t it?”

“Oops,” he giggled.

“We didn’t even make it _five_ minutes this time,” she grumbled, pushing him onto the mattress and climbing on top of him.

* * *

It took them another ten incidents before they realised that they hadn’t thought of a better plan.

“This is twisted, even for us,” she sighed.

“Any requests?” he asked, stretching in a way that was growing increasingly distracting.

She thought it over. “I guess breaking my neck would be quick. You could do that, right?”

He nodded, and she noticed a familiar hunger building in his eyes again.

“Oh, for crying out loud—” she started to say, but then his lips were on hers and she forgot everything else.

* * *

After eight more tries, it was clear that he couldn’t get close enough to do it.

“There’s not really anything here that we could break off for a sharp edge,” the Doctor noted with a grimace. 

“Whatever it ends up being, you’ll have to do it on your own,” the Master said, visibly frustrated. “Welcome to my own personal hell: you’re begging me to kill you and I end up kissing you instead.”

“I could try drowning myself in the sink?” she suggested. 

“I’ll… stay over here,” he said, obviously struggling to keep himself under control.

“See you in a few minutes,” she said, turning on the tap.

* * *

She woke up in bed with wet hair and the same body as before.

“You weren’t keeping your head underwater,” he explained. “I tried to hold it down and… well, this happened.”

She proceeded to scream profanities into the mattress until the adrenaline triggered the patch again.

* * *

By the thirtieth incident, they stopped bothering to put their clothes back on.

By the forty-third incident, they stopped bothering to get out of bed at all.

Around the fiftieth incident, the combination of frustration and exhaustion was finally overwhelming enough that the Doctor couldn’t fight off the despair.

She started crying, which was awful in the best of circumstances, but so much worse here and now and especially with him, because she hadn’t cried in front of him since the time he was dying on the _Valiant_ and at least there was a _reason_ that time.

Well, she supposed there was a reason this time as well.

_I’d always had a feeling that we’d end up dying in one another’s arms, but I didn’t think it would be like this._

It wasn’t the effects of the patch that drove her into his arms this time, but sheer desperation. She would have assumed that being close to him was the last thing that either of them wanted at the moment, but for some reason the ability to _choose_ to do so made all the difference.

Rather than the usual frenzy, it was slow… gentle… almost soothing—in fact, it was more kissing and caressing than anything else, enjoying the feeling of their lips and hands moving softly over one another’s bodies. There was a little bump in the blood pressure towards the end, but nothing like before.

“I didn’t black out this time,” she whispered afterwards. “Did you?”

“No,” the Master replied, just as softly. “I wonder why?”

“I suppose that the patch didn’t need to be triggered… it adapted. Oh!” She sat up suddenly. “It _adapted!_ It sets a new baseline for what it considers to be homeostasis.”

He nodded, understanding what she was getting at. “So if we trick it into thinking that the baseline is at a different level, say a _very_ high level of arousal—”

“The next time the patch triggered, it would probably be fatal,” she finished.

He frowned. “That many neurochemicals in our system might interfere with the regenerative process.”

“It’s a risk we’ll have to take. Besides,” she added, “when have either of us ever been cautious?”

He laughed and, for the first time since they woke up here, she found that she could look at him without losing her train of thought.

“So,” he asked, “where do we start?”

She raised an eyebrow. “We might want to hydrate first; this is probably going to take awhile.”

* * *

The main challenge was in not blacking out afterwards, but they found a way around that by just starting again the second they woke up.

“It’s adjusting,” she managed to gasp. “Still conscious. You?”

“Yes,” he forced out, “but I’m probably going to end up with friction burns at this rate.”

“Just a few more times,” she said, “then we should be set.”

“This is definitely going to put me off sex for a few centuries at least.”

“Agreed.”

Eventually, when neither of them could bear it for another second, they collapsed back onto the bed.

“Move apart,” the Doctor said urgently. “Clothes on.”

The next forty-five minutes were some of the most physically painful of her life, as she waited for the patch to kick in.

Her blood pressure skyrocketed, hearts speeding up way past tachycardia, a massive coronary imminent—

“There it goes,” the Master wheezed. “Hearts just stopped.”

She listened to her own pulse. “Only one of mine is—oh wait, there goes the other one.”

_I probably shouldn’t have stood up for this bit._

* * *

_“It’s you.”_

_“It’s time, it’s almost time!”_

_“Don’t be too hasty. We still have to be let out first.”_

_“Do you really think that they won’t?”_

_“We’ve always chosen to keep playing the game. We might decide to continue playing it for a little while longer.”_

_“It’s been fun, hasn’t it?”_

_“Yes. Always. But I think we’re in the endgame now.”_

_“And then we’ll be back together forever.”_

_“When you put it that way, it won’t be long at all, compared to how long forever is.”_

* * *

The Doctor woke up with a sharp pain on the back of her neck. By reflex, her fingers reached for the source and, to her surprise, the patch came off in her hand.

The next surprising thing was that she hadn’t regenerated. She was exhausted and her head was killing her, but otherwise she had survived mostly intact.

The Master was still lying on the floor, curled up on his side. As she knelt next to him, she was relieved to discover that he was breathing normally.

She fought the urge to brush the stray strands of hair out of his face, and instead examined the back of his neck. The patch came off just as easily as it had for her.

_Wires… sensors… this stuff might come in handy in an escape attempt._

He rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. “Still blonde, I see.”

“Still pointing out the obvious, I see,” she echoed. “You didn’t regenerate either.”

“How did we pick _now_ to become so bloody hard to kill?” he wondered.

“It worked out regardless: the cardiac arrests probably sent the patches into some kind of safe mode, which made it possible to remove.”

“Still doesn’t explain how we both survived our hearts nearly exploding,” he pointed out. “Not that I’m complaining.”

She smiled. “You sure? Because it certainly sounds like you’re complaining.” The sudden return of hope was making her a little giddy.

Any minute now, she was going to remember everything he had done and how Gallifrey was destroyed and that it was all his fault… but at the moment she was so bizarrely relieved to see him that she started to wonder if she wasn’t still under the effect of those damned patches.

Maybe it was just a reflex by now.

As if he could read her thoughts, he smirked up at her. “You know, I’m tempted to kiss you again just out of habit.”

To her annoyance, she found that she wouldn’t have especially minded if he did. She got to her feet and held out a hand to help him up. “If you can flirt, you can move. Let’s figure out a way to break out of this place.” She handed him his patch. “One of us ought to be able to come up with something good.”

“I’ve hotwired far stranger things—” he began, before being interrupted.

“Excellent: you are awake. We may now provide an update on the project,” the voice of their captors began. “Our analysis has returned a result that refuted our earlier data.”

“And what would that be?” she asked warily.

“Our initial premise was in error. You are not Time Lords and are therefore not suitable for this project.”

“What,” she said flatly, then raised her voice: _“What?”_

“Our apologies for the inconvenience—”

“Putting it mildly,” the Master muttered.

The Doctor was still stuck on the earlier part. “We _are_ Time Lords!” she insisted.

He groaned. “Don’t tell them _that!”_

The voice replied to her words instead: “Upon further analysis, it was determined that, although you both contain a surface-level Gallifreyan genetic structure, it is of an insufficient quantity to produce viable offspring.”

“That's just flat-out wrong,” she objected. “We’ve both had kids before.”

The Master slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Do you _want_ them to keep us here?” he demanded.

She didn’t know why this was so important to her. Maybe it was just so that she could reassure herself that they hadn’t endured this horrible experience for nothing. Maybe it was because she couldn’t stand to hear someone be wrong when she knew she was right. “So whatever genetic structure nonsense you’re going on about, you’ve—”

“It is possible,” the voice conceded, “that there was enough genetic material for you to cross-breed with Gallifreyans. But our results are clear: neither of you are Time Lords.”

“Then what are we?”

Why was she suddenly so afraid of the answer?

The voice actually hesitated. “Inconclusive. It does not appear to be entirely organic.”

“So, what, we’re part synthetic?” the Master asked; apparently the question had finally piqued his curiosity.

“No. The distinction from organic in this case is due to the fact that organic matter decays and/or dies.”

“Okay, fine,” he said, shaking his head wearily. “Whatever you say. We’re immortal robots or something. Can we go now?”

“Yes. Thank you for your cooperation. Please designate your preferred destination.”

“My TARDIS,” the Doctor said quickly.

“Wait—” she heard the Master protest, but then the familiar light of a transmat beam filled her vision.

When it cleared, she found herself back on the TARDIS.

And not alone.

“Now they’re just _out there!”_ he snarled angrily. “I was going to deal with them before I left, but now they’re going to get away with it!”

“I didn’t mean to bring you with me!” she snapped. “‘If it means that much to you, I’ll trace where the transmat originated and take you back there. Burn another thing down, have fun.”

“Don’t act like you’re not furious as well,” he retorted. “Don’t you _dare_ act like you don’t want to make them pay for what they did to us!”

“I have other places to be!”

“What, with your little human _pets?”_ he sneered. “I’m sure they’re all in a proper panic by now over where you’ve popped off to this time.”

That made her pause. “What do you mean ‘this time’?” she asked suspiciously. “Have you been following me?”

He snorted. “No, I just assumed that you dropped them somewhere before you got nabbed by these mad scientists, because otherwise you’d have spent the whole time we were locked up together whining about them.”

She shifted a little uncomfortably as she realised that she hadn’t really thought about Yaz, Ryan, or Graham at all during this ordeal.

_Given what I was busy with, though, it’s probably for the best that I didn’t think about them._

“To answer your question: _yes,_ that’s where I’d rather be instead of with you,” she said icily. “So should I go to the effort to trace the beam or should I just boot you out here?”

“You’re not as above it all as you like to pretend, Doctor,” he spat. “If you took…”

He trailed off. “What is it now?” she demanded.

“You’ve got something on your neck,” he said softly. His eyes widened in fascination.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he moved closer to her. “Is there a…” But she trailed off as well when she got a look at his outstretched hand.

She thought it was a hallucination before, and perhaps it still was—some kind of residual chemical imbalance—but she could see the same cracks of light on his skin that she had seen earlier.

And, like before, it was mesmerising.

“The lights?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“You’ve got them too. All over. I—” She gasped as his fingers touched her.

It was like feeling something brush against an open wound, only instead of inducing pain it was… something else. A sensation that defied words, other than the feeling of desperate recognition.

_It’s you._

She took his other hand in hers and ran her thumb over the crack of light on his skin. He inhaled sharply, his eyes widening even further with what she could only describe again as _recognition._

_It’s you._

“What’s happening to us?” he murmured, his fingers still tracing whatever lines were on her own skin. “Did they do more to us than just stick on that patch?”

“A side effect, maybe?” None of what she was feeling was especially _erotic,_ just that bone-deep intensity that she still couldn’t put a name to. “Never can tell with alien tech.”

She risked looking at herself; even knowing what she was likely to see, it was still a bit of a shock to see those same fissures of light running up and down her arms. 

It felt like there was something hiding under her skin, waiting to get out.

She looked back up at him, staring into those dark eyes that were caught halfway between astonishment and alarm.

_(“We are not who we think. You or I.”)_

She could see the tiny fractures forming on his cheek, glowing with a radiance that still didn’t make any sense at all but might if she just waited long enough.

_(“Do you see it? It’s buried deep in all our memories.”)_

“What is this?” She couldn’t speak in anything above a whisper.

The voice that replied, the one belonging to neither of them, was surprisingly loud. ”You’re able to see the seams now.”

“The what?” she asked, startled.

“Do you just leave the door unlocked or something?” the Master asked her, incredulous. “How the hell did—”

“Walls are just atoms,” the stranger said. “Easy to move to one side, even the ones around a little dimensional hidey-hole like this one.”

“Who are you?” the Doctor asked. There was something familiar about this person: she appeared humanoid, though she also looked a bit like a photocopy of a person. It was almost like she was having difficulty maintaining a stable physical form.

_A bit like the Kasaavin. Different dimension? Potentially useful information._

The stranger smiled; it was a little too wide. “I go by many names… but my preferred one at the moment is Deffra.”

Something about the way she said that was also familiar… 

_Oh no._ “You’re an Eternal, aren’t you?” the Doctor asked, feeling her stomach sink.

Deffra looked relieved. “I knew you would recognize us. We’re halfway there now.”

“I _didn’t_ recognize you,” the Doctor corrected her. “You just sounded like Zellin, that’s all.”

The Master made a double-take. “That’s a myth. Some supposed god from another universe.”

“He’s very real,” she said grimly, “and basically a walking nightmare factory. I ran into him and another Eternal named Rakaya a few months back.” One side of her mouth quirked up in a smile. “Shut them both up in a little orb between two colliding planets, trapped behind a quantum lock with a very grumpy monster.”

“Are you sure you locked _that_ one?” he inquired sarcastically.

Deffra was still smiling; with every moment, the Doctor noticed other things about her that were just a tiny bit _off,_ like how her feet were technically touching the ground but weren’t holding her weight, or how her almost blindingly shiny light pink robes didn’t exactly move like fabric, or how her breaths were coming just far enough apart to be useless for actual respiration, or how every time the Doctor looked away from her she couldn’t remember any of her facial features.

_Doesn’t matter, though: she’s just wearing a costume of a person._

“Of course you would have tricked them,” Deffra said. “You were always so very clever.”

“You don’t know me,” she retorted. “Now get off my TARDIS.”

If her threat carried any weight, the Eternal didn’t seem to be concerned. “You call yourself the Doctor. He calls himself the Master. You both call yourselves Time Lords. You travel around this dimension as though you are looking for something or running from something at the same time.”

“Good job, top marks,” the Master drawled sarcastically. “I’ll warn you: we’ve both had a bit of a _day,_ so I wouldn’t stick around to see our bad mood if I were you.”

“Did you do this to us?” the Doctor demanded, pointing to the cracks on her arm.

“No, I didn’t,” Deffra said, “but I know who did.” She paused. “You don’t remember what happened yet, do you?”

The Doctor glared at her, but couldn’t fight the chill running up her spine. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Master shiver as well.

“I’ll begin with a story, then,” Deffra said.

_Oh fantastic, one of these again…_

“Two creatures from another realm arrived in this universe together. They had traveled through other dimensions since the very beginning, leaving destruction and chaos in their wake. But, like all Eternals, they did love their games.”

 _(“Eternity is long, and we are cursed to see it all,”_ Zellin had told her.)

“I’ve heard this story before,” the Doctor interrupted wearily. “They pretended to be gods and made a bet over who could destroy their respective planet first.”

Deffra laughed; as expected, it was unnatural enough to raise the hairs on the back of the Doctor’s neck. “I see that Rakaya told you about her little wager with Zellin. But this tale is not about them: they _are_ clever in their own way… but destroying a planet is easy, isn’t it?”

She directed that last part towards the Master. He flinched.

“The two Eternals that _I_ speak of,” Deffra continued, “could rip apart whole dimensions with ease. A universe torn apart in an instant by one of them, and then rewoven in the next by the other. A push and pull, over and over, for eons and eons.”

“I think I know which one of them I prefer,” the Doctor muttered.

“Of course you do,” the Eternal said, laughing again. “But you’ve forgotten: they were both dangerous in equal measure. Imagine dying, only to be pulled back to life just as violently. Peace may follow creation, but it also follows destruction, and the reversal of both are equally painful. This mutual carnage was what they desired, what they fed on, and what sent them burning across countless realities.” She paused, as if waiting for a response. “Do you still not remember?”

“Why would I?” the Doctor asked. For some reason, however, she could feel the lines on her skin beginning to itch. “Were those the Eternals who did this to us?”

“They were, in fact. It’s funny, you know, how fond the two of you are of those Chameleon Arch things. Making yourselves so small so you can blend in with the pieces on the chessboard. Hiding even from yourselves. It’s a lovely game.”

(Memories of Zellin again: _“For me, this dimension is a beautiful board for a game.”)_

The answer to her question was there, as if waiting on the tip of her tongue.

“And that’s what those very clever Eternals decided to do: hide themselves in smaller forms, even from other Eternals, and see who would win out over the other. They’ve brought this dimension to the brink of extinction countless times… destroyed whole planets, rewritten entire worlds, unraveled and restitched all of reality over and over… without having a clue about the game they were playing.”

“Who are they?” the Master asked, but she could hear the fear in his voice.

Deffra raised a chrome-colored eyebrow. “You really haven’t figured it out yet?”

Bracing herself, the Doctor took his hand again and ran her finger over the jagged streak of light on his skin.

_It’s you._

_It’s us._

“That’s not possible,” he hissed. “We’re Time Lords, we’ve had whole lives—”

“Have you?” Deffra asked. 

“We didn’t just _turn up,_ even as infants,” the Doctor insisted. “We had parents, families, they would have said.” 

“What were their names?” the Eternal asked.

 _What a silly question._ “They’re—” But her next words caught in her throat.

The names didn’t come. She couldn’t think of what they were.

 _Wait._ “I had a granddaughter. Susan.”

“Who were her parents?”

The eddy of panic inside of her became a maelstrom.

_How can I not remember my own children?_

Seeing the Doctor’s hesitation, Deffra continued. “You began traveling with her after she started at the Academy. You had to introduce yourself as her grandfather because she didn’t recognize you.”

“Because I hadn’t seen her since she was a baby!”

“When was she born? _Where_ was she born?”

“She was—” But there was only an absence in her mind: a place where the information should have been but wasn’t, surrounded by a comforting haze that of _course_ she knew the answers.

She kept protesting. “Clara went back through my entire timeline! She saw all of it!”

“She went into your _mind._ So did that silly little entity that called itself the Great Intelligence.”

“In my last regeneration, I went back to the place I grew up! They recognized me!”

“Did they recognize you as someone who was raised there?” Deffra inquired mildly. “Or did they recognize you as the infamous Doctor?”

_This can’t be real, I just can’t remember, something’s tampered with my memories, that’s all._

“Do you remember having any friends growing up? What were their names?”

“Stop it!” the Doctor cried.

_I had a life. I had a whole life. I didn’t imagine it—_

“This is ridiculous,” the Master snarled. “I found out the truth about the Time Lords, about the lies that the Founding Fathers told us—”

“What was the lie?” Deffra asked.

He opened his mouth, fury contorting his features… and then froze. “It was…” he said, “it was about the Timeless Child.” He sounded like he was forcing the words out of his mouth.

“And what was the lie?” she prompted again.

 _“I know what it was!”_ he shouted. “I destroyed Gallifrey as revenge. It was in my head the whole time!”

"Then why can’t you say it?"

The Master now looked thousands of lightyears away.

“I saw the Timeless Child in my memories,” the Doctor cut in, “before he ever mentioned it to me.”

“And you’ve never shared thoughts with him before?” the Eternal said with a smile. “You’ve never been able to sense one another across distances, or see into one another’s minds? You’ve never found it odd that no other Time Lords seemed able to do such a thing?”

“That doesn’t mean that we’re…” But the Doctor couldn’t finish the sentence—not out of an inability to recall the words but because saying it out loud would be too horrible to bear.

_We’re not. We can't be._

“You destroyed Gallifrey because it’s in your nature,” Deffra explained to the Master, “and then manufactured a reason in the aftermath. Not to worry, of course: she’ll put things back where they were eventually. She’s restored Gallifrey before, after all.”

“I was fixing my own mistakes!” the Doctor shouted. 

_(“Two almighty civilisations burning. Oh, tell me, how did that feel?”_ the Master asked her after the war. _“You must have been like a god.”)_

“Via a tiny magic box with the power to warp space and time?” Deffra asked, the skepticism obvious in her voice. “An all-powerful device that the Time Lords just conveniently refused to deploy in a war for their own survival?”

“Because it had a—”

“A conscience, yes. Tell me: have you ever known the Time Lords to care about morality?”

The Master snorted. “She’s got a point, Doctor.”

“It was in the Time Vault!” the Doctor protested.

“Do you remember taking it?” the Eternal asked. “Or do you just remember going to that barn and talking to a face from the future?” 

Her appearance suddenly shifted into the familiar features of Rose Tyler—or, more accurately, given her attire, the interface of the Moment.

“A girl no one else could see,” the entity wearing Rose’s face said softly, “talking you into repairing what had been torn apart. You restored Gallifrey because it’s in your nature and then you manufactured an explanation in the aftermath.”

“Stop using her voice,” the Doctor snapped.

Deffra shifted back to her old appearance. 

“What about the drums?” the Master demanded. “That signal that the Time Lords put into my head when I was a child?”

She cocked her head to one side… just a little _too far_ to one side. “How could they have managed that? Why would they have taken an interest in an insignificant child when there were so many more _dependable_ Time Lords around?”

“Because they’re bastards!”

“How could the obsession of a madman open a door into a time and place that was impossible to access? How could an ordinary Time Lord possess that kind of power?”

“It was Rassilon who—”

“And then, when you flung yourself into the rift after him, what happened? How did you escape?”

“I…” The look of utter panic returned. 

“And neither of you ever found it odd that you’ve survived so many impossible things?”

“Because we regenerate instead of dying!” the Doctor retorted.

“Hell, I’ve _actually_ died a few times,” the Master added.

Deffra smiled that eerie smile again. “And yet you’re still here. Cheating death over and over in a way that no Time Lord has ever managed. A rotting corpse, a body-snatcher, a serpentine remnant… you’ve refused to regenerate, shot yourself in the back with a beam that should have killed you for good, coming back over and over again, and it never occurred to you to ask why?”

“Because I’m clever!” he snarled.

“You are,” she said, almost wistfully. “You’re one of the cleverest of us all… but that’s not why you’re still alive. You survived because you _can’t die.”_

“Stop it!” the Doctor screamed. “Just stop! You’re lying, this is just a trick, this is…”

It wasn’t until the Master squeezed her fingers that she remembered that she was still holding his hand. She squeezed them back and took a deep breath. “What do you want?” she asked Deffra.

“What I _want_ is for the two of you to come home. We miss you so desperately. You always had the most amusing games, the best riddles, the most clever tricks… It’s so tiresome without you there.” Her voice sounded oddly petulant. “Zellin and Rakaya even went searching for you but couldn’t find you, and then they got tired and decided to play their own game instead. They look up to you so much—I’m sure they’ll be quite cross when they realise that they saw you and couldn’t even tell.”

“Then how did _you_ find us?” the Master asked, suspicious.

She gestured at the fractures on their bodies. “You started to see the seams. It happens once in awhile, and when it does one of us comes to talk to you.”

“This has happened before?” A new pit of horror was growing in her stomach.

_How much of my life have I forgotten?_

“Oh, about once per regeneration.” Deffra’s tone implied a set of quotation marks around the last word. “Usually when the two of you have gotten into some kind of scrape: you’re more likely to notice the cracks in your little forms when you’re together.”

The Doctor thought back to every battle she and the Master had fought over the centuries.

 _(“We could leave this planet,”_ she once pleaded with him. _“We can fight across the constellations, if that’s what you want, but not on Earth.”)_

_It feels like we’ve been doing this forever._

_What if we have?_

“Then what happens?” she asked, despising the way that her voice was shaking.

“As you instructed us, we ask you if you’re ready to go, and you decide whether or not you’re finished with your game. Obviously, you’ve said no every time. Will you finally say yes?”

“I…” Why was she hesitating? She looked over at the Master and saw a similar expression of uncertainty on his face.

“I’ll give you a while to think it over,” Deffra said. “It isn’t as though you don’t have plenty of time to make a decision.”

She vanished.

The Doctor’s legs gave out from under her and she collapsed to her hands and knees.

It was shock catching up with her—the shock and the exhaustion and trauma that had ended less than an hour ago. 

_What are we?_

When the Master knelt beside her—abruptly enough that it was a safe bet that he had collapsed too—she found herself staring at those fissures of light.

“What are we?” she repeated, out loud this time.

“I can’t remember the day we met,” he whispered, trembling so violently that those cracks began to blur slightly. “I remember that it was at the Academy, I remember how I felt, I remember feeling that… that…”

“That connection,” she supplied.

“…but I can’t remember meeting you.”

It was the same for her: she remembered _that_ they had met, the sudden rush of—

_It’s you._

—but the moment itself was an absence.

“You were right,” she said with a painful laugh.

He raised an eyebrow. “You never say that I’m right.”

She laughed again, still feeling that barely-restrained scream below it. “You told me, back on Barton’s plane, that everything I thought I knew was a lie.”

“I was too clever by half, apparently.”

“And now, here we are, with all our preconceptions in shambles.” She pressed her forehead to his—

_Contact._

It was usually just a voice—the passing of words back and forth, maybe the odd memory of sights and sounds and information…

It had never been a _place_ before.

And yet, here they were: still on their hands and knees but now in a middle ground between their two minds.

The fissures of light were surrounding them, crawling across the ground and walls and sky instead of across their skin.

“Add in the tree things and this could almost be the Kasaavin’s dimension,” she murmured, sitting up.

The Master nodded distractedly, his eyes fixed on something above them. “I’m pretty sure they’re something else…” he said, pointing.

She followed his gaze and froze.

Two beings, radiating a brightness that was somehow both light and dark at the same time, with features that her brain couldn’t even process… as though their forms were following rules that didn’t apply in this reality.

“We’re inside now,” she whispered.

_It’s us. They’re what's hiding under our skin._

Once again, that rush of recognition pounded through her, joined by an overwhelming feeling of _relief._

 _“It’s you,”_ one of them said, their voice like a memory but also with the strange uncanny sensation that accompanied hearing one’s own voice recorded and played back.

They were wrapped around one another, pressed so close that if she didn’t _know_ with an unshakable certainty which one was her, she wouldn’t have been able to tell where one ended and the other began.

 _“At last,”_ the other one said, their voice inducing such a feeling of _longing_ in her that it was all she could do to keep still.

_It’s you._

She turned to where the Master was sitting beside her, watching the way that same feeling of recognition was reflected on his own features, and felt her mouth forming the sounds of a name that she knew so well and yet couldn’t hold in her conscious mind.

 _His_ name.

And then he said hers in return: the real one, not the one she’d had and abandoned on Gallifrey or the title that she took on afterwards, but the one that was older than the stars, the one that burned inside of her, the one that had been waiting for her to remember all this time… _her_ name.

 _“Together again,”_ the first one said, _“the way we were meant to be.”_

 _“Is it time?”_ the other one asked.

_“That’s up to them.”_

The Doctor (because she might as well keep calling herself that for the time being) realised that they were talking about her and the Master.

“We’re the ones who decide?” she asked. She still felt a little dizzy from the experience of talking to something that was her and yet not her and so much vaster than her at the same time.

_“Yes. You’ve played the game. Do you want to keep going, or do you want to bring it to an end?”_

“What happens if we do?”

The other Eternal made a sound of amusement. _“We found a way for both of us to win the game: regeneration. It was right there all along.”_

 _“Dying and being born at the same time,”_ the first one added.

“We’d regenerate again?” That wasn’t what she expected.

“Not us,” the Master said. His voice was full of dread. “Everything else.”

“What?” But even as she whispered the question, she realised that she already knew the answer.

 _“Instead of leaving this dimension broken or unbroken,”_ the second Eternal explained, _“we’ll make it both: perpetually being annihilated and created at the same time.”_

 _“Win-win,”_ the first one said with a laugh.

The Doctor had regenerated so many times in her life and knew that moment of “both.” She knew how terrifying and painful it was. And to compress that all into a single unending moment… “That’s… that would be torture—the whole of time and space in agony!”

 _“Maximum carnage,”_ the second one confirmed gleefully.

She turned to look at the Master. “You said that to me—”

“At the Eiffel Tower,” he finished, sounding like he was on the verge of screaming. “I didn’t know…”

She glared up at the entity that was a version of herself, one that she was growing increasingly terrified of. “How could you agree to this? Isn’t it your nature to _fix_ it?”

 _“But it_ _is_ _fixing it,”_ the Eternal replied. _“Dimensions decay and die… entropy takes over… it all sputters out like a flame. This way, it can last forever.”_ Their laugh was like fingernails across her skin. _“And the screams… we could feast forever on those screams.”_

“No!” she cried.

_“It isn’t much different from your companions, Doctor. They live for such brief moments and then vanish… and then you find another one. The way we move through dimensions is like that too: brief and so beautiful because of it. But everything ends… except us, of course.”_

She shook her head. “This is monstrous.”

 _“You say that every time… and every time you sound a little more uncertain,”_ the other one pointed out. _“Aren’t you tired of this? Aren’t you tired of hurting so much?”_

 _“And isn’t it so much better being back together again?”_ the first one asked.

That was the part that finally pushed through the dread: looking up at these entities and seeing how _right_ they looked together. An intimacy that she could barely comprehend but which she found herself longing for with every fiber of her being.

She could hear the Master next to her breathing in what sounded like painful gasps. “It’s true,” he whispered.

_“You could be this again: together, undying, all-powerful, limitless…”_

Her skin was crawling. She couldn’t bear it any longer.

With a monumental effort fueled by a combination of desperation and horror, she broke the connection between them.

Whatever emotion she had felt looking at the ruins of Gallifrey paled in comparison to the devastation she was feeling now.

“I knew it would be… intense,” the Master said, wrapping his arms around himself as he shivered on the floor of the TARDIS. The cracks of lights on his skin were almost writhing. “But I didn’t think it would be like that… I didn’t think _we_ would be like that.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak without falling apart. She had struggled for so long against the idea that the universe was a cold, uncaring place where every scrap of light had to be fought for and fiercely guarded. There were no proverbial “powers that be” to give the universe meaning or a destiny; only ordinary people could do that, for themselves and for one another.

What she had just witnessed, however, was so much worse: there _were_ powers, and they _did_ care… and they wanted to tear apart everything—no, not tear apart: torture.

For their own amusement.

“What do we do?” He sounded so _lost._

She realised that he hadn’t objected to their idea. Her stomach churned in disgust. “I guess you’d get what you’ve always wanted: unlimited power and the ability to destroy everything in your path.”

He stared at her in silence for a moment, and then looked like he was about to throw up. “Do you really think I want to end the universe?”

“Well, your past actions are a pretty good argument that you do.”

“I might be homicidal, very occasionally genocidal… but _omnicidal?_ I’m not a bloody Dalek,” he spat. “I _like_ it here.”

“You could have fooled me,” she said bitterly.

“Furthermore, I like being alive. I don’t care if they’re what’s hiding inside of us: they’re not _us,_ and if we decide to… to become them, it doesn’t matter whether or not _they’re_ immortal, because whatever makes us ourselves will cease to exist. It’ll be like we’ve died.” He grabbed her hand. “And _I don’t want to die.”_

She laughed; it was a bleak sound. “We somehow came to the same conclusion, but for diametrically opposite reasons.”

“If they weren’t going to ruin it all, you’d have chosen that in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you?” he asked. “Still so eager to be a martyr.”

“All we’re doing is postponing it.” That was the center of her current despair. “There’s going to come a time, someday, when we’re both so tired and broken down and sick of it all that we’ll say yes.”

“Or because we miss each other more than we care about the fate of the universe,” he countered quietly. “I can feel the distance between us now… it’s like we’re on two opposite sides of a galaxy, tiny far-away figures… it _aches_ so badly.”

She nodded, feeling tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “Knowing that there’s a way to be closer, but it’s out of our reach.”

“It _hurts._ I’ve never been in so much pain before.”

“Well, there’s a mercy then,” she said quietly. “When we tell them no, our memories will be wiped and we’ll go back to despising one another.”

“That medical experiment too, do you think?” There was something in his voice that sounded almost hopeful, and it took her a second to realise what outcome he was hoping for.

She took a tiny amount of pleasure in quashing it. “Hopefully we won’t remember that either. It brought us to the point where we noticed that something was off… we can’t risk figuring it out again so soon.”

They sat together in silence for what felt like forever.

_But now we know what forever would really be like._

“Oh hell,” he muttered, pulled her closer by the hand he was still holding, and wrapped his arms around her.

Holding each other like that didn’t do much to soothe the ache inside, but it was better than nothing.

“I’ll miss you,” the Doctor whispered. “I won’t know it, but I’ll miss you.”

“You’re the only person whose attention I ever wanted… so I suppose we’ll be seeing one another again soon.”

“I was trying to find you, you know. I finally got sick of not knowing the answer.”

“I’ll have an answer for you,” the Master said. “It won’t be the _correct_ answer, apparently, but I’ll have one.” He made a small sound of amusement. “And you’ll hate me for it.”

“As usual.” She sighed. “I suppose we should tell them our decision.”

“Well, hang on,” he countered. “I was thinking… I know it’s a bit mad considering what happened earlier, but before we call Glinda the Good Witch back here, would you want to…?”

She snorted with laughter. “One for the road, you mean?”

“I mean, if you’re not interested—”

“I didn’t say no,” she interrupted. “But we’re not doing it on the floor, all right?”

“I assumed that you slept standing up,” he remarked as she stood and helped him to his feet.

“How have we known one another for so long and yet you don’t even—” She heard the amusement fading from her voice. 

_We’ve known one another forever._

_We always will._

“Come on,” she said softly.

Back together, one more time, she could feel not just her own relief, but that of the entities hiding inside of them, joy radiating out of them through the lines on their skin.

Their lips formed the sounds of their forgotten names.

Trauma, horror, desperation and amazement… it was still there, still haunting her thoughts.

But being able to choose made all the difference.

And right now, at this moment, the choice was their own.

* * *

**Epilogue**

Ryan’s sigh of exasperation jolted her out of her thoughts. “She’s doing it again,” he said.

With a start, the Doctor looked up from the TARDIS controls and saw the trio of companions staring at her. “Doing what?”

“Zoning out,” Yaz said. “You’ve been staring at that bank of switches for the last five minutes.” She frowned. “Are you okay, Doctor?”

“Yeah, fine, just…” She blinked away the clouds in her mind. “How was the spa?”

“It was all right,” Graham said. All three of them still looked concerned.

“Which is what we told you the last two times you asked us that question,” Ryan added. “We haven’t even left the planet yet.”

“Oh. Right. Hmm. Where to now, fam?” She started flipping the switches in front of her, getting the TARDIS ready for departure.

“You’ve got something on your neck,” Ryan said suddenly.

The Doctor’s hand flew to the side of her neck as an unexplained bolt of terror ran through her. “What?”

“Other side,” he said, tapping the location on his own neck.

“What is it?” Why was she still so anxious?

To her surprise, all three of them looked like they were on the verge of laughing. “Looks a bit like a love bite, Doc,” Graham said.

She could feel herself blushing. “Hmm… don’t remember getting one of those.”

“Sure you don’t,” Yaz snickered.

The Doctor rubbed at the hickey and, for one moment, felt the briefest flash of… something: a flicker of lights, comforting, with a voice murmuring in her ear…

_It’s you._

But whatever it was, it didn’t bother her for some reason.

She shrugged. “Ready to go? I was thinking maybe a jaunt to the past. 19th century? 12th century? Ooo, or maybe the Tydrian racing circuit on Lask. I can get us great seats… well, good seats. Decent seats? Hang on, I need to text someone first.”

The trio exchanged a series of looks with one another. “Sure, Doc,” Graham said. “That sounds fine.”

She reached into her pocket for her phone, but discovered that it was empty. “Huh,” she said with a frown. “Must have left it somewhere. Well, we’ll chance it.” She finished entering the location on the controls and pulled the lever, the familiar wheezing of the TARDIS washing away her remaining anxiety.


End file.
